There Is Broad Authority to Investigate and Prosecute Torture Crimes, Including Any Crimes in Ordering or Authorizing Torture: Based on prior government investigations, documents obtained by the ACLU through our FOIA litigation, and numerous media reports, there is credible evidence that acts authorized, ordered, and committed by government officials constitute violations of federal criminal statutes. Although the political debate about whether acts such as waterboarding are torture has caused confusion in some press accounts, waterboarding and other forms of torture and abuse clearly violate existing federal criminal laws, including the War Crimes Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2441, the Anti-Torture Act, 18 U.S.C. §§ 2340-2340A, and federal statutes that criminalize conduct such as assaults by or against U.S. nationals in overseas facilities used by the federal government. There also are numerous federal criminal laws against obstructing or interfering with government investigations or court proceedings. [emphasis omitted]

Romero went on to say that current efforts [JURIST report] to investigate the interrogations were too weak to hold offenders accountable, and that only a special prosecutor sanctioned by the attorney general could effectively investigate the allegations.

Earlier this month, the CIA admitted to destroying 92 tapes of interrogations of the "high-value" detainees, later admitting that 12 of the destroyed tapes [JURIST reports] included evidence of "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" (EIT). Rights groups and experts on torture have long criticized [JURIST news archive] the US for its use of EIT, and US President Barack Obama in January issued an executive order [text; JURIST report] explicitly banning the use of waterboarding and other techniques that do no comport with Geneva Convention safeguards for prisoners of war.

About Paper Chase

Paper Chase is JURIST's real-time legal news service, powered by a team of 30 law student reporters and editors led by law professor Bernard Hibbitts at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. As an educational service, Paper Chase is dedicated to presenting important legal news and materials rapidly, objectively and intelligibly in an accessible format.